DPA Microphones Captures Pristine Audio At Radio City Music Hall

Renowned crooner Tony Bennett recently took to the stage for the “'ne Last Time' concerts at Radio City Music Hall alongside long-time friend and collaborator Lady Gaga, and the performances were nothing short of magical.

As this is likely to be the last time audiences see Bennett perform live, the concerts were captured and aired as a CBS special on November 28, 2021.

With sound at the forefront of considerations for this event, GRAMMY Award-winning Audio Engineers Jody Elff and John Harris of Harris-Elff Audio Resources (HEAR) selected a variety of DPA Microphones for the orchestral recording.

"The audience was full of love for Tony Bennett, and it was a powerful couple of nights of music," said Elff. "We were live on-stage at Radio City Music Hall, one of the greatest venues in the world, with a large orchestral ensemble. We also had Tony’s jazz ensemble and Lady Gaga’s rhythm section on-stage, in addition to full string and brass sections, a harp and a few woodwinds. We had DPA mics all over the orchestra―our older 4021 Compact Cardioid Condensers [today known as the 4011ES] on the piano, 4061 Omnidirectional Miniatures on the violins and violas, and 4099 Instrument Mics on all brass, woodwinds and strings, including harp, as well as on the soloing sax and trumpet. As expected, all the DPA mics sounded great."

During the two performances, Elff was feeding his mixes to Harris, who was mixing the bands and vocals. "I sent my stems to John for him to blend,” explains Elff. “It was not a live broadcast, but we were making a stereo reference mix that would later be used during the video edit. I had the orchestra under my fingers with 40 or 50 channels of inputs, with DPA arranged throughout. It was fantastic to have DPA’s level of fidelity and unrivaled level of clarity and isolation in the very large hall, which had a lot of sound reinforcement and 6,000 adoring fans. The DPA mics allowed me to create a beautiful, clean, orchestral mix that worked really well for the recording. I also sent mixed stems of the orchestra mics back to the stage to be used in the performers’ in-ear monitors. These performances were remarkably touching, and the DPA microphones helped showcase Tony’s legacy as one of all-time greats."

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